The Florida state legislature decided to reward Tim Tebow with the Medallion of Excellence for "his achievement off the field" and passed a resolution in his honor.
I won't deny that Tim Tebow is accomplished off the field. His parents are missionaries in the Philippines, and over his spring break he went and joined them over there. Over my spring break, I drank and sat on my ass. Obviously one of us is better than the other in that regard. He is a paragon of family values and a hell of a good person.
But say my parents were missionaries in the Philippines and I went and joined them over their during my spring break. Say I lived a pious lifestyle like that of Tebow (this is obviously hypothetical). Would I be given a medal for what I did? No. Non-athletes do not get the same treatment.
Tim Tebow is receiving this medal purely for what he did on the field. I would have no problem with this if the Florida state legislature would just admit it. Tim Tebow got this award because he won the Heisman Trophy. He got this medal because he threw for 32 TD's and ran for 23. Hell, if the Florida state legislature said they gave him the award because they couldn't resist staring into his dreamy eyes I wouldn't have a problem with it.
This is just another instance of athletes receiving special treatment based solely for the fact that they are athletes. The state of Florida needs to rethink its priorities. What is more important in that state? The state legislature giving the Medallion of Excellence to Tim Tebow or the state legislature deciding on things that actually pertain to running the state of Florida? I find it hard to believe that the most important resolution the Florida House of Representatives had in front of them was the Tim Tebow Is Awesome Act.
I will commend Tim Tebow however for saying the right things when receiving his award. "There are a lot of role models in football, but there are not a lot of good ones," Tebow said. "People might not think they're a role model, but there are always people watching." I'm glad to see that someone realises the media is going to be all over them. I'd be a good role model too if it got me this.
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